Woj Kwasi

I Am Whatever You Say I Am - Interview with Wil Reynolds

We've reached the final episode of WojCast for season one and what better way to cap things off then with the straight-shooting head of SEER Interactive Wil Reynolds?

Prepare yourself, along with the rest of the marketing industry, to take a long hard look in the mirror as Wil strips away all niceties to reshape SEO in a bid to protect the needs of his clients and their audiences from the pressures of the algorithm.

Wil Reynolds Quotes

"There's no substitute for time. I was in twice the amount of meetings as people my age because I was spending twice the amount of time working on my career, and I got more exposure than they did faster."

"I think people overvalue getting their finances straight and undervalue just helping people solve their problems. So I've always placed my focus on that."

"When you go into someone's craft and their life's work and you say, 'Well, move this around for Google – not for people – for Google. Get more rankings,' you're kind of shitting on somebody’s baby."

Follow Nathalie

Changing the World One Brand at a Time - Interview with Melanie Spring

Being a badass and branding go hand in hand, but doing business and thinking about the humans involved in it on both sides of the deal has a tendency to get lost in the shuffle.

On episode 17 brand strategist Melanie Spring joins Woj and Bobby to talk about her cross-country journey to uncover the lesser known stories of businesses across America.

Whether big or small, every organisation has to work hard to connect with the people who work for them and the people who buy from them. A company’s branding is the essence of that connection and Melanie shows us how she can guide individuals and businesses through the processes of knowing, growing and managing their brand identity.

Melanie Spring Quotes

"It's humans talking to humans about humans. It's all story telling. It doesn’t matter how big you are or how small you are. Basically you just have to run your company like humans work there." (5:11)

"AirBnB totally nails the user experience." (17:44)

"What's the most important thing to do when you have a brand... You have to have the basis for who you are and what you stand for." (20:52)

Key Takeaways

Branding is all Human (6:18)

The Power of Hiring Intrapreneurs (and what an Intrepreneur is) (9:02)

Follow Melanie

The Name's Page, Landing Page - Interview with Oli Gardner

What kind of madman would actually consider changing his name to Landing Page?

Our own Woj Kwasi had an inkling Oli Gardner fit the bill. That's why he pinned down the globe-trotting orator for an insightful interview at MozCon for episode 16 of WojCast.

Woj and Oli explore Oli's journey from Edinburgh to Canada, Unbounce's history and its future with artificial intelligence, the power of insights over data (and how to get them), how to improve the conversion rates of almost anything, and whether there's anything Oli can't optimise.

MacGyvering your way through this episode and try to capture the sweet spots on camera — that’s the Landing Page way.

Oli Gardner Quotes

"Brand matters to us. We want to have customers who are brands and companies, valid, real businesses who care about that and don't just want some landing page."

"You probably don't want joy on a bug exterminator's website. You want some fear. You want some disgust. These ugly mosquitos or crazy spiders. So everything's different."

"You can look at the same data set and different people would derive different insights from it because it depends how you think or how intuitive you are or how smart you are or whatever. So insights are sort of a strange thing."

Psychographic Killer - Interview with Marty Weintraub

A musician by trade, Marty continues to rock the proverbial casbah and everything else he touches with his incredible audience and customer acquisition tactics. Join our heroes on episode 15 as they take a journey through the mind of a marketing legend to discover the challenges he faced building an industry leading marketing company.

Marty Weintraub Quotes

"Just keep in mind that on any given day anybody can completely suck— especially me. And on any given day anybody can change the world and impact the way marketers do things all over the world— especially me." (10:53)

"All of life is marketing my friend. All of life is marketing, all of life is arbitrage, all of life is customer service." (18:34)

"By 2018 more than 20% of business and commercial content will be written by machines and it will be better." (24:27)

Key Takeaways

Running a Business 101: Vision vs Execution (13:04)

The Art of Looking Like More Than You Are (14:41)

Content: Feeding the Machine (24:08)

Learn How to Learn or Die (29:57)

Dolphins (34:35)

Marty On Happiness (41:49)

Follow Marty

Gianluca Fiorelli returns for the second part of his interview to discuss how humanistic studies influences his international SEO work. From the evolution of language to literary theory, Gianluca’s academic background makes him a powerhouse in digital marketing.

The meaning of words and interpretation of content may one day be monopolised by google as it continues to invests more resources into arranging the sum total of digitised human experience. Gianluca explains the creative process through the lens of classical European philosophers, to answer the the hows and the whys surrounding the things that influence human decision making.

Leap off of the deep end with our heroes and discover the roots of the content wars and the implications search has on the political and social landscape of the entire globe.

To be concluded...

Gianluca Fiorelli Quotes

"Just ask Google, just ask Wikipedia in order to receive an answer. Maybe yes. Maybe we can have this kind of risk. Who is controlling the game? Who is judging the judge?" (12:36)

"I think I'm really lucky to have known what to be fully analogical means because let's say if all the things we are using are going to disappear for some reason, I'll still know how to think. I think that my son or either my cousins, where they are totally digital, they would go into panic." (35:04)

On Episode 13 of Wojcast he takes the time to burst open a few bubbles with our heroes Woj and Bobby to help broaden their understanding of how search and marketing operate internationally.

Over a burger and fries with the blogger of choice at Moz, the team also get a lesson in robotic ethics as told by science fiction and find out why the future of AI will be determined by the porn industry.

Gianluca Fiorelli Quotes

"You could have some sort of 'Terminator' future because robots can decide for the goodness of humanity to rule humanity." (13:00)

"Sometime in the future we're going to have some sort of a mix between the 'Battlestar Galactica' cylons and the 'Blade Runner' cyborgs. Surely we'll see everything first in porn because porn is real avant-garde for everything in technology." (14:50)

Key Takeaways

Growing up SEO in Moz (3:15)

The development of search in Italy (6:43)

Robots from science fiction to science fact (10:22)

Choosing brand identities (16:32)

Gianluca's conference The Inbounder - which also tours to London, Madrid, New York and Milan (37:30)

Follow Gianluca

We love Jeff Goldblum, but not as much as Geraldine DeRuiter (syntactical ambiguity totally intended).

On episode 12 Woj and Bobby take a trip with the jet setting Everywhererist to discover the roots of her liberating travel ethos, where failing at a vacation is impossible and getting lost is all part of the master plan.

After writing her first book, All Over the Place: Adventures in Travel, True Love, and Petty Theft, Geraldine is bursting with golden nuggets of wisdom delivered with her timely sense of humour and endlessly inviting nerdery.

After surviving career setbacks, a brain tumor and a non-existent sense of direction she proves that when life gets tricky, Geraldine finds a way.

Geraldine DeRuiter Quotes

"There's Rick Steves and Anthony Bourdain and Samantha Brown and all of these, you know, incredibly charming, successful people who tell you how you should be traveling. And I think all of that is just garbage because all that does is it creates a system in which you can fail at a vacation and that's terrible, right?" (2:31)

"You are not determining every factor of it. I think that's true if you're doing a startup. I think that's true if you're on a trip. I think that's true if you are writing a book. At some point, it kinda takes a life of its own and it's going to lead you, so I think you need to be okay with being kind of a passive sort of journeyman or woman on that trip. You know, you need to be able to sit back and let it guide you…" (7:40)

Our heroes Woj and Bobby learn about how the company will confront the future of SEO and how Rand addresses pressure and looks after his mental health in the process.

Rand Fishkin Quotes

"...Any time you see opacity or secretiveness, there’s almost always something bad behind it… And on the flip side, when you are transparent, the harsh criticisms that you expect turn into words of kindness and praise." (25:45)

"Many of these problems would be solved through transparency and wouldn’t even exist if you had transparency." (28:40)

"In the order of operations of Moz’s values, empathy is the only thing that sits above transparency." (30:00)

Key Takeaways

Breaking the depression loop (20:48)

The value and challenges of living transparently (24:34)

Empathy in business (30:00)

Rand is also hard at work on his tell-all new book Lost and Founder, which will be available through Penguin.

Sweet! But before you go all Trump and start waving your CEO flag it’s time to put some serious thought into the ideas that will form the foundation of your company.

You may know what you do well but do you honestly know why you do it? Values are everything and few founders represent what they believe as openly as Moz’s Rand Fishkin.

On episode 10 of WojCast, he reveals the roots of his religious devotion to transparency and how it helped build Moz into the industry leader it is today.

Plus Woj learns why you should never forget your gameboy... ever.

Rand Fishkin Quotes

"If you want the suit and the tie and the jacket and the formal language and no one who ever says the ‘F’ word, then we’re not the company for you. That’s not us." (11:17)

"What you want to say is 'How do I help you make twice as much from your search traffic next year as you made this year? That’s what I’m going to help you do.' And ranking is part of that." (18:00)

"Microsoft received a lot of criticism when they were growing up here in the 90s, and some of it was deserved. They were a pretty aggressive company when they grew, but they brought about the era of web and technology, and everything that we have today." (19:34)

Follow Rand

About WojCast

I’m Woj Kwasi, founder of Kwasi Studios. Join me in conversation with some of the world’s digital elite and leading entrepreneurs to undercover the secrets to their business and online success, including: How to overcome adversity to build a thriving business, mastering authenticity and discovering the power of digital empathy.